Letter VII. If you are LDS (Mormon) and haven't read Oliver Cowdery's Letter VII, you need to read it during 2018 to understand Church history and the Book of Mormon. This blog discusses the role the letter has played in our understanding of Church history.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Today is the 190th anniversary of the day when Joseph obtained the Harmony plates from Moroni. The plates were in a stone box on the Hill Cumorah in western New York. This was in a department of the hill separate from the depository of Nephite records (Mormon 6:6).

Maybe by the 200th anniversary, in 2027, everyone in the Church will accept what Joseph and Oliver taught about Cumorah in Letter VII.

Actually, I hope that day arrives sooner. Maybe in 2023, the 200th anniversary of the date when Joseph first saw the plates?

Or 2020, the 200th anniversary of the First Vision?

But why wait? How about this year, in 2017?

Think of what a difference it would make int he Church and in the world if all of our LDS scholars and educators decided, finally, to embrace what Joseph and Oliver and all of their successors taught?

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Letter VII's observations about Cumorah reflected teachings that were known before the translation of the Book of Mormon was even finished, as we know from David Whitmer's account of the trip from Harmony to Fayette.

Nevertheless, some scholars claim that the association of the "New York hill" with ancient Cumorah was a later invention. They say it was a false tradition started by unknown persons, and that Joseph Smith passively adopted this false tradition.

One of the Histories included in the Joseph Smith Papers was written by John Corrill. Titled A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1839, Corrill relates his experience with the missionaries in Ohio in 1830.

"Sometime in the fall of 1830, Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer [Jr.] and Tiba [Ziba] Peterson, came through the county of Ashtabula, Ohio, where I then resided, on their way westward. They professed to be special messengers of the Living God, sent to preach the Gospel in its purity, as it was anciently preached by the Apostles. They had with them a new revelation, which they said had been translated from certain golden plates that had been deposited in a hill, (anciently called Camorah,) in the township of Manchester, Ontario county, New York. They were deposited about 1400 years since by one Moroni, under the direction of Heaven, with a promise that in the Lord’s own due time, they should be brought forth, for the special benefit of the remnant of his people, the house of Israel, through Joseph, of Egypt, as well as for the salvation of the Gentiles upon this continent. This soon became the topic of conversation in that section of country, and excited the curiosity of the people..."

If you remember from Letter VII, Oliver pointed out that Camorah was an incorrect spelling. But the point here is these early missionaries, including Oliver Cowdery, were teaching that the hill in New York was "anciently called Camorah."

Oliver was with David Whitmer and Joseph Smith in May/June 1829 when they met the divine messenger who was going to Cumorah with the Harmony plates. It was this messenger who identified Cumorah as a real place to which he was traveling in New York.

Later, of course, Oliver, Joseph and others visited Mormon's depository of records in the same hill, which Mormon labeled Cumorah in Mormon 6:6.

Original Letter VII

The earliest version of Letter VII available today is in the July 1835 Messenger and Advocate, published in Kirtland. You can see it by clicking here. Go to issue 10, JULY 1835, and scroll to Letter VII.

This is the place

About Me

I like the way Daft Punk wear robot suits in public. I'd rather focus on the music than the personalities. Same with Internet discussions; I'd rather focus on the information and the logic of the arguments than the personalities. That said, people want to know I'm a real person, so here's a photo of me at the UN in New York.

Disclaimer

The author writes this blog in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other person or institution.